The various embodiments described herein generally relate to processing an item-identifying indicium on an item. More particularly, the various embodiments described herein relate to a system and method for detecting fraudulent item transactions.
The packaging of essentially every product on the market is provided with some sort of machine-readable indicium. Such an indicium may be a bar code, a (non-bar) pattern code, a magnetic strip, a radio frequency identity tag (RFID tag), or non-visible identification signs. Examples of a bar code are the Universal Product Code (UPC), or the European Article Number (EAN), typically printed on the product packaging. For example, in retail and grocery stores, a ubiquitous part of the checkout process is a cashier scanning of bar codes on purchased items. Instead of the cashier having to read a price and enter it manually into a cash register, the operation of ringing up a sale and entering its price is done with one swift cashier hand movement that runs the face of the item containing a bar code past a bar code scanner or a hand-held bar code scanner being positioned over the bar code. The known technique of scanning a bar code is described, for example, in Roger C. Palmer, The Bar Code Book, Helmers Publishing, Inc., Second Edition 1991, e.g., Chapter 6—Reading Equipment, pages 69-109.
The effectiveness of such a cashier bar code checkout is that the procedure requires no attention from the cashier other than the manual manipulation of merchandise from either a basket or short conveyor belt. Once the cashier grasps an item, the face of the item having the UPC, or other bar code, is oriented away from the cashier's field of vision and positioned over a glass port and sensors trigger the bar code scanning operation. An audio tone normally advises the cashier that the bar code on the item has been read and the transaction registered. Safety concerns and ergonomics require that the bar code be facing away from the cashier while scanning, and, hence, the operator's attention is detached from the scanning process.
The cashier typically is not expected to scrutinize the bar code before scanning, but rather after a cursory examination of the item being rung up, positions the bar coded side of the packaging to face the bar code scanning window of the checkout station, or a hand-held bar code reader. This cashier process of UPC bar code scanning, while being much faster and accurate than cashier keyboard entry, creates a very open and unprotected area for bar code fraud.
In fact, bar code fraud at retail and grocery checkout counters has reached the proportions in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as reported in the European Wall Street Journal on Oct. 26, 2006, pages 14-15. According to that report, large scale organized fraud as well as individual shoplifting is being done via printing bar codes of low cost items and non-obtrusively pasting them over the genuine manufacture code. Hence, an expensive item can be transited “normally” through the checkout cashier, but being charged the perpetrator at a fraction of listed price.
It is not reasonable to expect that checkout cashiers perform a sanity check on each specific item's price being rung-up, or even the final bill, especially during busy periods or if they are relatively new to the job. This is the basic premise of document FR 2863082, entitled “Visual control device used at checkout of consumer goods.” That visual control device is configured so that a scanned bar code on the item, which the cashier is currently handling, brings up on a cashier display screen an image of the item that should correspond to that bar code. This product image displayed to the cashier allows the cashier to double check if the scanned product is the same as the one displayed. However, with its distraction and attendant difficulties of making the cognition and comparison between the bar code scanned item and the displayed image, the very productivity that underlies the economics of bar code scanning in retail and grocery operations greatly diminishes.